


Petals

by Eastofthemoon



Series: Something Familiar [11]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cats, Curses, Familiars, Family, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hanahaki Disease, Humor, Witch AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 01:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20165959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eastofthemoon/pseuds/Eastofthemoon
Summary: Shiro would be the first to admit that as a witch’s familiar, one had to expect the unexpected.  Yet, every now and then, something would throw him off.  Coming home to see scattered flowers on the floor wasn’t exactly bizarre, but it wasn’t normal for their home either.  He raised an eyebrow as he followed the trail of petals into the living room.(Written for Gentron: Legendary Friendship-Prompt: Hanahaki Disease)





	Petals

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Gentron: Legendary Defender. When I saw the prompt was Hanahaki Disease, I couldn't get this idea out of my head.

Shiro would be the first to admit that as a witch’s familiar, one had to expect the unexpected. Yet, every now and then, something would throw him off. Coming home to see scattered flowers on the floor wasn’t exactly bizarre, but it wasn’t normal for their home either. He raised an eyebrow as he followed the trail of petals into the living room.

Someone coughing as he entered. More petals were spread in disarray across the floor and in the centre of it all was Lance, in his cat form, hacking non-stop.

“Lance,” Shiro asked in concerned as he kneeled, “buddy you okay?”

The cat froze, slammed his mouth shut and attempted to raise his head as if nothing was wrong. Shiro narrowed his eyes. Lance didn’t seem to be in dire stress, but Shiro recognized a guilty look when he saw one.

Shiro crossed his arms as Lance seemed to struggled to keep inside whatever it was he had in his mouth.

“Alright, what’s going on?” Shiro asked.

Lance tried a meow but then began to hack again. Then, suddenly a blue daisy dropped out of his mouth. Shiro blinked dumbly as Lance sheepishly tried to hide his face behind his paws.

“Did..did you just cough up a flower?” Shiro asked.

Being cats, it wasn’t uncommon for them to cough up a hairball or two, but everyone tried to do that kind of thing in private and clean it up afterwards. Coughing up a whole flower...that was new.

A sigh was heard from the other room. Shiro raised his head as both Hunk and Keith entered.

“Lance, I thought Coran told you to say stay in the kitchen,” Keith scolded as he kneeled to scoop up the flower.

“Yeah, no offense but easier to clean up if you stay in one spot,” Hunk said as he patted Lance’s head.

Shiro frowned as he stood back up. “Okay, could someone tell me why Lance is coughing up flowers?”

Keith and Hunk both glance to Lance like they were wondering if he would speak up, but when he didn’t Keith volunteered. “Lance got himself cursed.”

Shiro blinked. “What?”

“It’s a weird curse that apparently causes people to cough up flowers,” Hunk continued.

Shiro raised and then lowered his hand. “How did he get himself cursed?”

Seriously, Shiro had barely been gone an hour. There were days he swore he couldn’t his eyes off the other cats for five minutes.

Keith pointed over his shoulder at Lance. “SOMEONE had the grand idea of going exploring in the attic.”

Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose. Oh, now that made sense. “And I’m assuming that someone accidentally set off a magical item from Alfor’s old collection?”

They had a good reason to avoid the attic. Allura’s father had a huge collection of magical artifacts. Some were useful, but most were weird due to the curses that was attached to them. Walking in there could be equal to walking into a magical landmine.

Lance’s fur went up before he swiftly changed into his human form and tossed his hands in the air.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Lance cried. “I was just trying to find a spare game controller to play that game Pidge found when I just happened to touch this dumb amulet by mistake.”

“Why would we have a spare game controller in the attic?” Hunk asked.

“Hey, Coran is always tossing old junk up there,” Lance argued. “I figure there was a chance that-”

A cough came. Lance covered his mouth as he continued to do so. Instinct taking over, Shiro patted his back until another daisy tumbled out.

Lance took a breath as he glared at the flower. “This..is so gross.”

“Just be glad you’re not coughing up roses,” Keith said as he crossed his arms. “Those would probably have thorns.”

Lance grumbled just as Allura, Pidge and Coran entered. Allura held one of her spellbooks in her hands as she looked to Shiro.

“Oh, you’re back,” she said as she shut the book. “Lance has-”

“Been cursed, yeah I just heard,” Shiro finished as he approached her. “Do we have a way to break it?”

Pidge adjust her glasses. “Technically we have two ways, but it’s a bit tricky considering how this curse works.”

“What’s so complicated?” Lance said as he slumped on the cough. “I am vomiting up plants.” Another cough came and another daisy dropped to the floor. “See?!”

“It’s called the ‘hanahaki curse’,” Coran said as he sat next to Lance. “It causes it’s victim to have flowers grown inside them and then forced to cough them when they experience unrequited love.”

Lance’s scowl vanished as he tilted his head. “Huh?...Unrequited…” He pointed to himself. “But I’m not in love with anyone.”

Hunk raised a hand. “Uh..don’t you have a crush on that movie star you like?”

Lance blushed. “Well, yeah, but I’m not in love with her. That’s just a plain old crush.”

“That doesn’t matter to the hanahaki curse,” Allura said as she flipped through her spellbook. “It seems the curse lumps crushes and actual feelings of love as one thing.”

“WHAT?!” Lance said as he jumped to his feet. “But that’s not fair!” He clearly wanted to yell more, but kneeled over as more daisies fell from his mouth. “I am so sick of this.”

“Calm down,” Shiro said as he gently forced Lance to sit down and looked to Pidge. “You said you had a cure?”

“Well, we got a couple of options,” Pidge said as she paced. “First one is to get the person to also feel romantic love to Lance...but that’s not an option for obvious reasons.”

Shiro nodded. He couldn’t even imagine how to get a movie star interested in Lance, even if he was actually in love with her. “What’s number two?”

Allura cringed. “Um...according to the book we could either try to remove the flowers by magic or even by surgery.”

Lance paled. “What?! You’re going to cut me open-”

“Calm down, we’re not doing that,” Allura said as she patted his head, but then sighed. “I could try my magic but I rather not.”

“Why not?” Shiro asked. Allura was usually chomping at the bit to use her magic.

“That would be because there’s a high risk of Lance losing all sense of his emotions if not done carefully,” Coran said.

Lance paled again. “What?!” His hands shook. “So...are you saying that I’m doomed to either no longer feel any emotions or to cough up flowers until I’m old and grey?”

“No, no, of course not,” Coran said as he patted his shoulder. “The roots of the flowers would tangled up in your throat and kill you long before then.”

Lance’s jaw fell as Shiro, Hunk and Keith exclaimed in unison “W-what?”

Shiro paled as he looked to Allura. “Is that true? We can’t let-”

“It’s true, but it won’t happen,” Allura cut in briskly as she shot a glare at Coran, “because we have a reasonable third option.” She pointed to a page in her spellbook. “There’s a potion we can make and give to Lance that will cease the flowers blooming.”

Colour returned to Lance’s face as his hands stopped shaking. “So...I just need to drink some weed killer?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Allura said as she chewed her bottom lip. “The only issue is that this potion is beyond my skill. We’ll need to call in an expert on the matter.”

“An expert,” Shiro muttered, but then the meaning dawned on him. “You’re not suggesting-”

“That we call Slav, yes,” Pidge said with a nod. “That was what we were thinking.”

In other words, Slav would be coming here. Shiro would have to deal with his annoying antics and criticisms face to face again.

Shiro went quiet as he turned to Allura. “How high of a risk was it again for you to use your magic?”

“SHIRO?!” Lance called out.

Shiro sighed as rubbed his neck. “I know, I was just joking.” Well...he was mostly joking.

0808080808080808080808080808080808080

Slav and Sven weren’t able to arrive until a few hours later. It meant they would have to spend the night at their place. Shiro wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but he was willing to put up with it if it meant to cure Lance.

Even if Slav did complain the shade of blue in the walls of the guest room. Yet, Slav seemed to be in an oddly chipper mood as he watched Lance cough up another flower.

“Fascinating,” Slav said as he wrote in his journal. “Truly fascinating. I have read about this curse, but to witness it is a sight.”

Lance growled as he wiped the petals off his lips. “Yeah, yeah. Can you please just cure me already?”

“Working on it,” Sven said as he read over Allura’s spellbook. “Although, we will require to boil some of the ingredients listed here.”

Lance raised an eyebrow. “And how long will that take?”

“Including boiling the potion itself, a couple of hours.”

“Great,” Lance moaned as he buried his face in hands.

Shiro gave a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “It’s just a bit longer.”

Lance narrowed his eyes. “Easy for you to say, you’re not gagging on petals-” Another cough came and another flower instantly popped out.

Slav scratched his chin. “Truly intriguing. I will have to take some notes in the meantime.”

Lance twitched an eye. “I’m glad someone is getting some use out of this.”

0808080808080808080808080808080

Lance swished the blue potion in the cup. “You sure this will end the curse?”

“Yes, yes, but stop shaking it,” Slav scolded as he seized Lance’s wrist. “Honestly, you’re as bad as Shiro.”

Shiro rolled his eyes as patted Lance’s shoulder. “The only way we’ll know is if you drink it Lance, but this is the field Slav is known best for.”

“Worst case being poison is probably better than choking to death,” Keith commented with a smirk.

“Oh, ha, ha,” Lance glared before he sighed and held up the cup. “Bottoms up, I guess.” He braced himself and poured it into his mouth.

Surprisingly, it had a sweet taste to it, but it did cause his tongue to tingle and the sensation continued to do so as he travelled down his throat. Once the cup was empty, Lance smacked his lips as he leaned back.

“How do you feel?” Allura asked.

Lance shrugged. “Nothing, I feel-”

Suddenly, he felt another cough come. He slammed a hand over his mouth as he coughed non-stop until he felt something fall out of his mouth. Lance felt Shiro pat his back as he stared into his hands. There were no flowers, but his hand was covered in tiny white specks.

“What are these?” Lance exclaimed as he pointed. “I thought that potion was suppose to cure me.”

“It did,” Sven said as he pulled back Lance’s hand to check. “The potion stops the flowers growing and they turn into seeds.”

“And now all you do is cough them up which you will only have to do at least two more times, or a ten percent chance a three times,” Slav said as he brought out a small bottle. “If it’s fine with you, I would like to collect these seeds. I imagine these flowers will make excellent ingredients for my research.”

“Sure, fine, fill your boots,” Lance said, but was stopped as Shiro took his hand.

“You can take most of them,” Shiro said with smirk, “but we’ll want to keep a couple.”

Lance raised an eyebrow. “And why do we want to do that?”

“To plant in a small pot,” Shiro said as he crossed his arms. “Maybe if we put some of those flowers in Allura’s room you’ll remember why you shouldn’t go in the attic.”

Everyone gave a laugh while Lance blushed. He was not going to look at flowers the same way again for a long time.


End file.
